While many encountered The Great Gatsby for the first time in high school, I came to it as an adult: willingly, curiously, not under any obligation. I had little knowledge of what the book was actually about, but I nonetheless brought preconceived notions to it: it’s the Great American Novel! It’s something everybody has read, and must read! It’s profound and full of symbolism (it had a foreword by someone I’d never heard of that told me so)!
I read the book from front cover to back cover—both introductions/forewords to ‘The End’—scouring it for every piece of meaning, re-reading sentences and paragraphs to make absolutely certain I had understood them (because, somehow, the language of The Great Gatsby (1925) was harder to understand than Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864)).
Maybe a second read-through would finally bring that hidden layer to the surface, but I’ll never know, because I don’t plan to put myself through it again. It would be a waste of valuable time: The Great Gatsby was neither entertaining nor enlightening.
Most people probably know the plot already, but I’ll recap:
Nick Carraway moves from the Middle West to a little house on Long Island where he neighbors the mansion of Jay Gatsby, a mysterious and aloof man who throws opulent parties every Saturday throughout the summer.
One of the first things he does when he reaches the east coast is visit his cousin, Daisy, and her husband, Tom. The relationship between Daisy and Tom seems strained, and their other guest, Jordan, tells Nick of rumors that Tom has a mistress in New York.
Sometime later, Nick gets a personal invitation to one of Gatsby’s parties, so he goes and, eventually, runs into Gatsby himself—whom nobody at the party actually knows. Gatsby takes a liking to Nick and begins inviting him to do more things.
Already, I don’t recall whether or not this happened before or after the first of Gatsby’s parties Nick attends, but Nick spends a day with Tom who spontaneously, purposely, to Nick’s displeasure introduces Nick to his mistress, Myrtle. The rest of their guys’ day is shared with both Tom and Myrtle and some of their neighbors in their New York City apartment. There, amidst an already uncomfortable party, Nick witnesses Tom strike Myrtle and break her nose. Stand up guy, Tom.
Returning to Gatsby: Gatsby finds out about Nick’s connection to Daisy, who was his girlfriend, briefly, some five years ago, and asks Nick to arrange a lunch so he can see her. From there, Gatsby and Daisy strike up a covert affair until it comes to a head one night when Daisy, Tom, Gatsby, Nick, and Jordan all have dinner together. During that night of hanging out, the truth is exposed, they drive from Long Island to New York City, then Tom and Gatsby argue over Daisy’s affections. In the heat of their emotions, Tom commands Daisy to drive home to Long Island with Gatsby in his car while the rest go in Tom’s car.
Rather than Gatsby driving, Daisy insists on driving while Gatsby rides passenger, and she happens to run over Myrtle and kill her. Myrtle’s husband, a previously passive and submissive man, snaps, in his grief, and blames Tom for his wife’s death (he’d previously seen Tom driving Gatsby’s car and claiming it as his own on the way to New York City) since he seems to finally understand there was an affair. So he goes to kill Tom, but Tom tells him it was Gatsby’s car, so the guy goes and kills Gatsby before taking his own life.
Nick is the only one, besides Gatsby’s estranged father, to attend the funeral. After that, Nick is sick of New York and all the people and parties, so he goes home to the Middle West. Before doing so, he officially breaks up with Jordan, whom he’d had something of a summer fling with, marking clearly his leaving New York behind him.
It’s an uplifting book, as you can tell from my synopsis.
I won’t pretend that one couldn’t extrapolate any messages from this book. I don’t think it’s possible to never find any messages in a book, even if they’re subtle, unintentional, or downright terrible. But just because there are themes and messages does not automatically give a story depth.
The Great Gatsby came off as a pretentious book more than a profound one—or perhaps it’s the clamor and prescribed import surrounding The Great Gatsby that comes off pretentious more so.
As best as I could understand, the “depth” of this book is found precisely in its futility and nihilism. Nothing in the end matters. Nick ends up right back where he started. Tom and Daisy move on as if neither cheated on each other and no absurd drama filled their lives. Jordan shirks Nick off like an old coat before he officially bids her goodbye. Somehow, that is supposed to be a profound take on the human condition and the nature of life. Perhaps I have a different perspective than most, but that seemed like an obvious take on humanity, not secret knowledge we peasants were let in on by the great philosopher F. Scott Fitzgerald. You don’t have to look very far to find these characters in the real world, and that’s not deep, that’s just a fact. And the fact that it’s a fact isn’t deep, either.
I don’t recommend The Great Gatsby. I don’t think the literature of the past, things that have endured the test of time, should be forgotten or snubbed because they’re old or out of step with modern sensibilities, but I don’t think Gatsby deserves its status as a must-read. If you want to read it, read it. If you like it, like it (though I cannot fathom why). But if literature is going to be required for any demographic, especially a developing one, there are better things to be showcased.
One detail I didn’t get into: The Great Gatsby isn’t even well-written. And I’m not going to get into that even a little bit now because I don’t want to pick the book up again to scour it for excerpts to support that assertion. Let it wither from my brain and die.
If you want a book recommendation that shows what the world looks like without morals, without love, without hope, without God, don’t read The Great Gatsby. Go read Ecclesiastes.
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